I just signed a petition calling for Norwegian universities to use research expertise on AI when deciding how to implement it, rather than having decisions be made mostly administratively. , If you are a researcher in Norway, please read it and sign it if you agree – and share with anyone else who might be interested. The petition was written by three researchers at UiT: Maria Danielsen (a philosopher who completed her PhD in 2025 on AI and ethics, including discussions of art and working life), Knut Ørke (Norwegian as a second language), and Holger Pötzsch (a professor of media studies with many years of research on digital media, video games, disruption, and working life, among other topics). This is not about preventing researchers from exploring AI methods in their research. It is about not uncritically accepting the hype that everyone must use AI everywhere without critical reflection. It is about not introducing Copilot as the default option in word processors, or training PhD candidates to believe they will fall behind if they do not use AI when writing articles, without proper academic discussion. Changes like these should be knowledge-based and discussed academically, not merely decided administratively, because they alter the epistemological foundations of research. Maria wrote to me a couple of months ago because she had read my opinion piece in Aftenposten in which I called for a strong brake on the use of language models in knowledge work. She was part of a committee tasked with developing UiT’s AI strategy and was concerned because there was so much hype and so few members of the committee with actual expertise in AI. I fully support the petition. There are probably some good uses for AI in research, but the uncritical, hype-driven insistence that we must simply adopt it everywhere is highly risky. There are many researchers in Norway with strong expertise in AI, language, ethics, working life, and culture. We must make use of this expertise. This is also partly about respect for research in the humanities, social sciences, psychology, and law. Introducing AI at universities and university colleges is not merely a technical issue, and perhaps not even primarily a technical one. It concerns much more: philosophy of science, methodological reflection, epistemology, writing, publishing, the working environment, and more. […]
Scott
I like the idea of blogging as housekeeping of the mind. I think it makes sense in some cases — yours for instance. You often blog as you’re writing something else — cooking, or refining an idea you’ve been playing with for some time — tidying.
Jill
Oh, yes, blogging as cooking, tasting different ingredients and seeing whether they’ll work together, shopping around for new foods that might work well… Tidying? Well… see, that sounds BORING. I’m not going for that…
achilleas
Yeah, but can eponymus blogging be an honest mind housekeeping device? Is there
not always a fear of being overexposed?
Moreover i’m not sure an unread blog is still a blog.
Jill
Oh, goodness, I don’t think housekeeping needs to be HONEST! Housekeeping’s about keeping your life and home organised enough that YOU are happy, whatever that entails. I think.
And I know about the unread blog, I thought about that when I wrote it, and I may even have written before that a blog with no readers isn’t a blog. I guess I mean that a blog’s a blog whether it has two readers or two hundred readers, but well, really I don’t want to get into defining the thing. I’m really tired of definitions…
achilleas
The more i think about it the more i conclude that i do use my blog as a housekeeping device. Sometimes i write things there as a means of not forgetting about them without worrying about readers. But since the blog will be read and interpreted by people i know, i have to be careful with sensitive material (the word `honest’ was not really a success i guess).
Nomatter how you’d call the thing, if they told you that nobody is going to read it, would you keep on posting? (i think i would)
Jill
Oh, I think I would. When I’m away from my blog (as in seriously away and offline for a while) I keep a paper blog in a very different way to the way I used to write a diary. Nobody reads that and it’s still something I want to do.
I guess my paper diary’s a bit more juicy, actually…